Amph The TV Thread: TV's Love Affair with the Procedural

This thread is a general TV thread:

TWoP 10: Best Network Decisions of the Fall
by Angel Cohn October 14, 2011 9:39 AM

"Most of the time, we're up in arms about decisions that TV networks make (particularly when they cancel shows that we love) but this fall, there have been a surprising number good moves on their part -- not including the full-season pickup for the increasingly awful Whitney, of course. Here are the ones we respect the most:

10. Moving The Good Wife to Sunday Night
We were initially upset about the show getting shuttled off to Sundays, especially since it meant we'd have to set our DVRs for CSI: Miami (something we thought we'd never do in this lifetime) because of NFL-induced overruns. But even though it's taxed our DVRs, the move seems to have worked ratings-wise, not despite but because of football and the huge audience it pushes to CBS' primetime lineup. Anything that gets more people watching Good Wife is fine by us, even if that includes House fans jonesing for Cuddy."

 

How exactly is losing more than 2 million viewers after the switch considered "a good move ratings-wise" or something that got more people to watch the show?

Moving The Good Wife was a good idea because it didn't have much in common with its lead-in. It's far from improving its ratings compared to last season.

 

It's also a pain to try to DVR it when it starts a half an hour late because the NFL runs long. That won't be so bad in the spring, but for now, with an inconsistent start time, I'm calling it a bad move.

 

9. Making The Sing-Off a Fall Show

"This really wonderful reality singing competition is usually given a few short weeks in the doldrums of December, but now it's a real show with a lot of amazing talent. We're thrilled that we get to see these groups performing their well-rehearsed, technically challenging numbers on a weekly basis for the entire fall season."

 

8. Giving 2 Broke Girls a Full Season

"The show has some issues (mainly the supporting cast of stereotypical characters and the incredibly intrusive laugh track) but if you can get past those, there's some sharp dialogue and good chemistry between the two stars. We're glad that the network is giving this show time to grow (and hopefully evolve away from its weak elements) for the rest of the TV year."

A laugh track? ARGHHH!

Not that I'd watch this anyway.

 

I think the laugh track is a CBS thing. How I Met Your Mother has one, I have a memory of the creators saying it wasn't exactly their choice to have one. That said, there is some potential to this show. Its not bad, I can't call it great, but it has made me laugh a couple times. Plus, Kat Dennings.

 

I'm no fan of HIMYM, but from the first five minutes of the first episode I ever watched, I was absolutely dead sure that it should have been without laugh track. CBS is just behind the times on this for some odd reason.

 

7. Saving Some of the Best for Midseason

"It used to be that midseason was a dumping ground for some of the programs that were subpar alternates for fall shows that didn't make it. But now the winter and spring is practically its own TV season, and we're looking forward to new series like Smash, Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 and Alcatraz."

 

6. Taking Glee and New Girl Out of the Starting Rotation for Baseball

"As demonstrated by X-Factor getting bumped at the last minute this Wednesday night at the last minute and Terra Nova and House being pushed back on Monday because of MLB playoff delays and extra innings, airing new episodes during baseball's postseason is a dicey proposition. Better to take them off the air for a month and bring them back when people can actually watch them during their regularly scheduled timeslots."

 

5. Quickly Cancelling Free Agents

"We felt sorry for everyone involved in this show, particularly Anthony Head. Really, they all deserved better than this rehashed material. At least Hank Azaria has years of huge Simpsons paydays to look forward to... oh, wait."

 

4. Hart of Dixie Getting a Full Season

"This show is ridiculous, implausible and not even very well acted. Yet, we're sort of happy it got a full season so we can continue laughing at it each week. For us, it's this year's Hellcats, but instead of an unbelievable law student in half-shirts, we've got a unbelievable doctor in short-shorts."

 

3. No Network "Saving" The Playboy Club

"We'd always preferred the light and inconsequential Pan Am to this fall's other period drama, and while The Playboy Club had a bit of a mystery, we really felt no curiosity about how it got resolved. So we're glad that there wasn't a stampede by other networks to "save" this show that really shouldn't have aired in the first place."

 

2. Holding Once Upon a Time Until Later

"This fairytale show (and the more procedural Grimm) aren't debuting until the end of October, which gives them a better shot at survival. Not that either are mind-blowingly amazing, but one, or both of these supernatural dramas would likely have gotten lost in the shuffle of new debuts before viewers had a chance to decide if they really like them or not. Based on the pilots we saw, that would've been a shame."

 

10 Promising TV Series The Weren't Picked Up

 

Do TV series deserve second chances?

 

Do We Need a TCM for TV?

 

The idea of a TCM for television is an interesting notion. It would give a home to short-lived or cancelled shows, as well as long running and successful series. However, I don't agree that you would be stuck with airing the same series over and over and I don't like the idea of showing only the best episodes, as some shows are VERY arc driven, but otherwise I like this idea.

 

I'd go go for that. I'm a younger person, but I still enjoy older films and TV shows.

 

I imagine you're in the minority unfortunately. I think, with the plethora of TV channels that exist nowadays, your average teenaged viewer is going to skip right past any TV show they see that's pre-90s, if not pre-Y2K. It's really a shame too. As a kid growing up in the 80s and 90s I watched a lot of Nick at Night and became of fan of shows like Get Smart, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, I Love Lucy, F-Troop, etc. and I loved it. But if I had had TBS showing me 3 hours of a modern sitcom I liked, I would have probably watched that instead.

 

I doubt that. If there are people who subscribe to TCM because they like silent movies and early talkies, I think there are people, perhaps the same people, who have an appreciation of early TV. The average teenage view might coast past MASH and I Love Lucy, but if there were a channel that treats great television with the same respect that TCM treats great cinema, those previously uninformed viewers could be properly introduced to some great viewing.

 

I really see TV Land as the answer to this although I will admit that their programming is mainly devoted to the sitcoms. I think the problem with this idea is that TCM airs respected films and generally the B Movie stuff doesn't get as much air time. I think the problem is that old TV shows can't really be respected in the same way because TV is made on the cheap.

 

Absolutely there should be. There almost is with MeTV. That's nothing but boomer programming 60's- early 80's which incidentally was when TV was at its best. I will say there a few too many westerns.

 

I disagree. TV may be made on the cheap, but that doesn't mean its not respected. Some shows, such as MASH, Cheers or Happy Days earn respect out of sheer longevity, while others, such as Friends, become a generational touchstone, or earn respect on the basis of a unique premise, like Babylon 5 or The X-Files, or due to iconic characters, such as Star Trek, or cultural penetration as in the case of The Simpsons.

 

I was talking specifically about young people, teenagers and kids. The same demographics who don't even know what TCM is. Very few teenagers that I know want to sit through a show that is *gasp!* in black and white. Granted, I don't know that many teenagers nowadays.